JESSICA JOHNSON
Jessica Johnson is the Perinatal Health Strategic Plan Coordinator at the NC Department of Health and Human Services. She has over ten years of experience focused on the health and educational outcomes of children and families. Throughout her career, she has worked in the nonprofit and government sectors, specifically focused on improving the inequitable outcomes in maternal and child health through program planning and evaluation and policy development. She is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she earned her MPH with a concentration in Leadership in Practice. She currently serves as a co-leader of the Alamance Health Equity Collective.
I am excited to work with the H.E.R. Lab as a way to ensure I am constantly looking at issues of maternal and child health through a lens of equity. I am thankful for the opportunity to network and learn from this intergenerational group and to offer connections and get feedback around the work I am doing to advance the state’s Perinatal Health Strategic Plan. I am specifically interested in what community engagement looks like within governmental public health systems.
“We can do hard things.” – Glennon Doyle
MAYA JACKSON
Maya Jackson, BS, CBD, CBD-T, CBPCS, AC-CBE, PHE, is the founder and Executive Director of Mobilizing African American Mothers through Empowerment (MAAME, Inc.). MAAME is a community-rooted birth justice organization that serves Black, Brown, Indigenous, Birthing People of Color, and other historically excluded communities to navigate complex systems to decrease barriers to access during pregnancy and postpartum. With a focus on community-centered solutions, the organization provides full spectrum doula support, infant feeding support, maternal mental health, and other resources to address an individual's social determinants of health through a village model approach and participatory community research.
MAAME, Inc. is the first community-based organization to address the maternal health crisis within Durham, Wake county, and surrounding communities within the Triangle area. Her advocacy work has helped address many of the concerns of Black and Brown birthing people of color and others from communities in North Carolina are facing. Jackson serves and consults on various maternal and infant health collaboratives and projects such as Born In Durham Healthy for Life, Durham's Early Childhood Action Plan, Lived Experience Advisory, Black Coalition for Safe Motherhood Trainer, Alamance Regional Doula Program, and much more. In 2021, she co-founded the NC Community-Based Doula Accreditation. Outside of serving her community, Maya Jackson is a mother of four who loves spending time with her family and traveling.
MONÉT KEES
Monét Kees (she/her) is the Health Equity Manager at Every Baby Guilford. In her work, she advances health equity by addressing systemic racism and implicit bias through education and dialogue. With a passion for educating others and empowering communities, she began working as a community organizer in public health advocacy after graduate school. She gained hands-on experience in building capacity and advocating for public policies impacting uninsured and underinsured Mississippians. As her career evolved, Monét shifted to local government through the Cooperative Extension system in Mississippi, followed by Indiana and then to the state level in North Carolina, serving limited resource communities through outreach and education. In addition, she advocated for Black maternal health and health equity as the Maternal Health Coordinator for a public health firm.
Monét holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences and a Master of Public Policy and Administration focused on public health and health policy from Mississippi State University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Instructional Systems and Workforce Development at Mississippi State University. Her research focuses on the intersectionality of race, human lactation, and education. Additionally, she is a certified breastfeeding specialist and full-spectrum doula. As a community member of the H.E.R. Lab, she is committed to collaborating with researchers, student members, and community members on research projects that center on health equity and create opportunities for systems-level change.
Favorite quote from Fannie Lou Hamer:
"Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over."
ASHLEY MARSHALL
Ashley Marshall currently serves as the Deputy Director for Forward Justice, a social justice, law, policy, and strategy center focused on serving the US South. In her role, she provides strategic leadership to the organization, co-manages fundraising efforts, and manages program development in criminal justice, democracy, and economic justice advocacy. She is a researcher where her primary research interests are Black women’s leadership, political and community engagement, and social movements. Before co-founding Forward Justice, she was an organizer for the N.C. State Conference of the NAACP under the leadership of Rev. Dr. William Barber, II. For two years, she aided and supported the NC NAACP and the Forward Together Moral Movement. She was also the 2014 Shannon St. John Fellow at the Triangle Community Foundation. Ashley’s earlier community experience entails violence prevention work with a domestic violence agency, youth outreach, and development, and serving as an organizer with economic justice organizations. She received her doctorate in Leadership Studies from the North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, focusing on transformative civic and community engagement. She serves as an instructor of Social Justice with Adler University’s Center for Civic Learning & Community Action, a Commissioner with Durham County Women’s Commission, a 2022 Social Justice Fellow with the Memorial Foundation, and is a community advisory member with Elon University, Health Equity Racism (H.E.R.) Lab. She is a published researcher and a fierce advocate for inclusive, transformative social change.
“When I dare to be powerful — to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
-Audre Lorde
LEXY ROBERTS
Lexy Roberts works for the education equity initiative in Alamance County called, Alamance Achieves as the Community Engagement Manager. Along with that, she also works at the Racial Equity Institute as a trainer & organizer. The themes across all of her work are advancing racial equity, strategy development for systems transformation, and building community-led coalitions.
"The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others" -Bell Hooks
MTENDE ROLL
Born and raised in South Africa to Malawian parents, Mtende Roll has been living, working and organizing in North Carolina since the end of 2016.
She went back to school to finish her Bachelors of Science in Economics at the illustrious North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 2020.
Mtende works as a trainer and organiser with the Racial Equity Institute, she is a small business owner and is in commercial and residential property investing. Outside of that, she is a doula in the efforts to advocate and support birthing people which came from learning about the inequities birthing people experience in hospitals, specifically Black women, and she wanted to be a part of the growing population of doulas and health workers spearheading the effort to close those gaps.
Throughout her journey and international experience, Mtende has and continues to commit to learning, growing and supporting the communities that she is a part of in hopes to make them more equitable.
Mtende is hoping to gain a larger community of people doing similar work, learn from them and help bring them all to reach and exceed their potential through the H.E.R Lab partnership.
Mtende's current favourite quote (because it changes all the time) is "You’re The Future That Your Younger Self Hoped And Prayed For" - Lalaina Rackson
JANIYA MITNAUL WILLIAMS
Janiya Mitnaul Williams, MA, IBCLC, RLC, CLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Registered Lactation Consultant, and Certified Lactation Counselor who has been supporting nursing families since 2007. She holds degrees from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Union Institute and University in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Health & Wellness with a concentration in Human Lactation respectively.
Janiya is the Program Director of the Pathway 2 Human Lactation Training Program at N.C. A&T SU (NCAT P2P). She also works for the Women’s and Children’s Center at Cone Health as the Co-Coordinator for Doula Services. In 2015 she created Mahogany Milk Support Group in order to promote, encourage, and normalize nursing for Black and Brown families. That same year, Janiya also became the first person of color and Non-Registered Nurse to be hired as a Lactation Consultant for Cone Health’s hospital system.
She is most passionate about creating diversity, equity, and inclusion within the field of Lactation in order to promote better health outcomes for Black and Brown, marginalized, and underprivileged families because they have the greatest lactation barriers to overcome.
